SoftBank Corp. and mobile payments operator PayPay are in talks to invest in retail giant Seven & i Holdings.
The investment is expected to reach up to 300 billion yen ($1.85 billion), and Sumitomo Mitsui Card may also take a stake.
The Sumitomo Mitsui Card is a part of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group. The two biggest markets for Seven & I’s 7-Eleven locations are Japan and the United States.
A year after its protracted battle with Canadian convenience store rival Alimentation Couche-Tard, which had attempted to acquire it in what would have been Japan’s largest-ever foreign buyout, Seven & I has failed to turn around its faltering business. If the investment is successful, it would be a welcome boost.
Investors have been pressuring Seven & I to concentrate on its primary business of convenience stores for years due to its poor returns.
In March 2025, it consented to sell its supermarkets division to private equity firm Bain Capital.
These stores were significantly larger than convenience stores and operated under different brand identities.
SoftBank wants to minimize labor costs in Seven & I stores by introducing autonomous robots and using its in-house artificial intelligence to enhance retail management.
SoftBank Corp., the domestic telecoms part of SoftBank Group, has been developing AI capabilities for enterprise clients alongside ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.
With SoftBank Group’s total commitment investment expected to surpass $60 billion by the end of 2026, OpenAI has been the subject of a massive investment drive.
